many people were not here! where did you all go? didnt you see yunge's sms? growl. next time must come okay? lunch practices are actually more important than we think they are, because it's a time we get to do stuff we dont usually have time to do during xiaozu practices, because TOH LAO SHI's too busy teaching us technical stuff, though it's not a bad thing.

taifeng is equally important, though. during lunch practices we could do funny african drumming thingies. and no 'not-attending' without valid reason, because chewfei says from now on,

XIN YI IS IN CHARGE OF TAKING ATTENDANCE FOR LUNCH PRACS AND SECTION LUNCHES.

so if you've been 'forewarned' that you cant attend a particular section lunch or lunch prac, sms xin yi to tell her okay!(xin yi, you need to ask chewfei about details of how to record attendance, i'm not too sure myself)

similarly, WENDY IS IN CHARGE OF TAKING ATTENDANCE FOR DAZUS and i'm in charge of taking attendance for xiaozus.

SMS US WHEN YOU KNOW YOU WONT BE COMING, AND EVEN IF THERE ARE ANY LAST-MINUTE CHANGES, TELL US. yay (: thank you!//

anyhow, let's continue with yesterday's lunch. yesterday wasnt technically lunch prac because we didnt practice but chewfei was giving a few rather important announcements. okay, actually, only one.

WE'RE GONNA HAVE A NEW YQP TEE!!!!

i believe the post about new yqp tee is right below this one, so one day yqp will have to get together to discuss the design, because every single yqp member should be part this!

chewfei came up with a rather interesting concept, whereby there will be square boxes at the back of the shirt, with each box containing a symbol of each and every one of us yqp members! and although is SOUNDS childish and cartoon-ish, i think an adjustment in texture and colouring of the picture will seriously help! so PLEASE DONT DISCRIMINATE THIS IDEA AS A DESIGN YET!maybe chewfei and i shall tell you all about it when the whole section is present, okay? (:

YESTERDAY XIAOZU

alright, i shall first start off with the general statement that YESTERDAY'S XIAOZU WAS UBERLY PRODUCTIVE, SO CHEWFEI IS, obviously, HAPPY! (: and so is everyone else, i believe.

this is an update of what we did.

1. di yi er hu kuang xiang qu.

those playing percussion for di yi er hu practiced with toh lao shi, concentrating on 'counting' and when to come in with playing with the orchestra. a lot of practice on timing and rhythm as well, naturally, also many reminders were given on listening to others as well as listening to the orchestra, looking at mrs ee for the tempo and so on.

i'm not too sure, really ._. but i think everyone was present for di yi er hu's percussion practice session so the rest of us dont really need to know.

2. qin wang dian bing (i shall call it qwdb)

so, for qwdb, we practiced the very very last fang kuai of the piece, which is called 'hua2 cai3 duan4'.

we started off with just an idea of how to play the section, until chewfei suggested that we create a formation, and we did! it has chewfei, xinyi, yunge in the middle and zu gu's and xiao gu's at the sides (joy has joined the xiaogu team because zugu has too many people!)

yeah so, in our formations, chewfei brought up the factor of AESTHETIC APPEAL. so now, we actually have a pattern to which side we lean our bodies towards when we play, and it really looks quite nice from the audience's point of view.

there's the effect of unity as well as contrast (counter: call and answer) in the swaying motion, with one side playing before the other, so it's very interesting, hooray!

then toh lao shi taught us specifically how to play the 'gun he tao stick hit other stick' part, so now we should all be very clear about the technique. (we will teach you some other time, rachel! dont worry)

afterwards we played through the stuff we had just learned and decided upon, and it was all quite successful.

then, of course, chewfei (yet again! our opinion-ful SL) suggested that we add in dynamics, as essential as it is. so now, the progression of dynamics for the sixteen bars (four bar phrases repeated 4 times) is now p, p, mf, f.the best thing about xiaozu yesterday was, even though we worked so hard, we had fun too! didnt we? (: chewfei successfully called toh lao shi "toh lao shi" 3 times that day! we must strive to call toh lao shi that as well, right in his face okay?

but even more importantly, naturally, is that we must jiayou for qin wang dian bing, because during lunch yesterday, chewfei made another super important announcement!

WE ARE GOING TO PARTICIPATE IN A PERCUSSION COMPETITION FOR CHILDREN AGED 5-16!!!!!

and because we're all so old, and also because we're considerably talented (cough) in percussion, we STAND A GOOD CHANCE OF WINNING! and as long as we work hard, WE REALLY REALLY DO STAND A GOOD CHANCE OF WINNING!

so must jiayou okay?!?!?!? (: imagine the kind of status yqp will have after we do well in the competition (cough), hahaha! well, this is a good thing to day dream about, thus we have to make it reality!!